Advocate of the Wirz Commission, to show by me that this report was seen by President Davis, but that effort failed, because I knew nothing on that subject. This was substantially all that I knew of my own knowledge, and so was competent to prove as a witness, in respect to the report. But very much more came to my knowledge as hearsay, not competent legally, yet as credible as what I knew directly.
My observations, during the several days I was in attendance and watching the proceedings of the Commission, convinced me—whether rightly or wrongly subsequent events have in some degree developed—that the destruction of Wirz was a very subordinate object of his so-called trial; that the main objects were to blacken the character of the Southern Government, and, as I thought, to compass the death of Mr. Davis and Mr. Seddon, who were not technically on trial, but were alleged to have "conspired" with Wirz and others to kill and murder the Federal prisoners, &c. One was immured in irons in a casemate of Fortress Monroe, the other was in a casemate in Fort Pulaski. Believing that their lives were in danger, I sought Mr. L. Q. Washington, who was then in Washington, and communicated to him the apprehensions I felt, and urged him to communicate, them to Mr. Seddon's friends, with whom I knew him to be intimate. I learned that he did so; and Mrs. Seddon sent Captain Philip Welford, a gentleman of great intelligence, to Washington to see what was best to be done to protect her helpless husband, who was being prosecuted while a prisoner six hundred miles away. The result of Captain Welford's investigations and conferences with friends in Washington, was that it was not deemed judicious for Mr. Seddon to be represented directly by counsel, but that he should place his materials of defence and explanation touching the Chandler report in the hands of Wirz's counsel; and this was done. The Government had gone into all this matter, and the response, therefore, on every principle of fair dealing or of law, was legitimate in that cause. Colonel Robert Ould and General J. E. Mulford, therefore, were summoned to show what the action of the Confederate Government on Colonel Chandler's report was. Judge Ould attended, and General Mulford was prepared to do so and to corroborate him. Judge Ould, as Mr. Welford informed me, unless my memory is at fault, was prepared to state that as soon as Colonel Chandler's report was presented to Mr. Seddon, the latter sent for him and showed the terrible mortality prevailing at Andersonville, instructed him to go down James river at once with his flag-of-truce boat, see General Mulford, inform him of the state of things there; that its causes, by reason of the blockade, were beyond our resources to prevent; but that we were unwilling that the breach of the cartel should entail such suffering; and to propose that the Federals might send as many medical officers to Andersonville and other prisons as they pleased, with such supplies, and funds, medicine, clothing, and whatever else would conduce to health and comfort, with power to organize their own
